OMG Nail Strips

Today I have a review of OMG Nail Strips, a brand I'd not tried before they contacted me for a review. Before I get to the details, though, I first need to publicly apologize to the OMG folks, because a very, very long time elapsed between when they sent me the samples and now. The samples arrived last year in a regular letter sized envelope, which quickly disappeared into my mess of paperwork to be looked at later; they only resurfaced last month, at which time I did get them into one of my swatching boxes, which are also a mess but one I am more motivated to deal with than piles of paperwork. Maybe I should start a paperwork blog and see if that helps me get more organized in that area. But then again no, who would read that? At any rate, the strips did finally get on my fingers, so let's get on with it.

The first design I tried was Speckle, with multicolored targets arranged in a grid. The OMG strips come in a flat pack with 14 strips arranged in two sets, each with the same seven sizes. I removed the plastic sleeve from the package for the photo below, but that sleeve was not airtight so I didn't feel rushed to use the strips right away before they dried out.



The back of the package has the directions.



One difference between these strips and others I've used is they were labeled at the base with their width in millimeters. I thought that was a nice touch and especially helpful in telling the middle widths apart. I also noticed the strips were stapled to the packaging; that was less nice, as I do not have a staple remover in my manicure kit.



These strips only have a curve at one end, which was fine as at my current nail length, the strips weren't really long enough for me to cut them in half and get two nails covered from one strip anyway. The strips were quite flexible, closer to Sally Hansen and Incoco than to Essie in thickness. I did get a few wrinkles in them at the edges and near my tips when I applied them, despite having a lot of experience with other brands of strips by now.





If you read the directions, you saw that they call for topcoat. I did not put topcoat on. I don't usually put topcoat on Sally Hansen or Incoco strips, and you saw what happened when I tried to topcoat the Essie ones the other week, so I skipped it. The next morning, I regretted that decision, as my sunscreen did not get along with the OMG strips at all. There was some sort of chemical reaction going on that made the strips start to feel sticky, so I quick washed my hands and put on some topcoat, which seemed to work, as the stickiness went away (and the strips didn't pucker up like the Essie ones did).

After five days, I had noticeable tipwear and a weird divot in the middle of my index finger. I wasn't sure, though, how much of that had to do with no topcoating them right away. Still, the design was busy enough that it didn't look too bad even with the wear.



Since I didn't feel like I'd given the first set a fair shot, what with not following the directions all the way through, I tried the second set they sent a week or so later. This design is called Spring Floral, and has multicolored and multi-sized flowers outlined in black. I was able to get these on with pretty much no wrinkling (practice makes perfect) and put Diamond Dry topcoat on right away.





I wore Spring Floral for seven days, at which point I had forgotten I was doing a wear test and started peeling them off. I'd removed the first set with nail polish remover, but that was kind of messy since the remover didn't seem to dissolve the strips as easily as the Sally Hansen ones, so I thought I'd experiment. I'd used a treatment base under the strips, as per my usual practice, and the strips (with their topcoat) peeled off pretty easily, leaving the treatment base intact for the most part—a bit sticky from the glue on the strips, but that rubbed off with no issues. I did remember I was supposed to be documenting these strips for a review before I peeled off the last one, so I grabbed this quick snap next to the window. You can see the tipwear is much less with the topcoat, and this was two more days than I wore the first set.



One advantage of the OMG strips over Sally Hansen is they don't dry out, so I was able to cut up one of the Speckle leftovers and use those pieces as accents on a mani I did with Sally Hansen Salon Effects on the Dot (a limited edition from Spring 2013). I was quite delighted with the effect.



On balance, I give these strips a thumbs up. Since they need topcoat, they aren't as portable as the Sally Hansen strips (I wouldn't put the OMG on in an airport, for instance, like I have the SH), yet they are more versatile for accent nails and later use than Sally Hansen and similar because they don't dry out. Further, they wear better than other non-drying out strips I've tried (Essie, Maybelline, Revlon).

Despite my shameful delay in doing this review, both of the OMG designs I used are still on the OMG Nail Strips website, along with many others (though Speckle seems to be out of stock at the moment). A set is priced at $7.99, but right now they have some good codes: four sets of nail polish strips for $20 (enter 4pack as coupon code during checkout) or 10 sets for $45 (10pack). I'm not sure when those codes expire, so grab 'em while you can if you're so inclined. Note that though these are called "nail polish strips" they do not seem to be made with the same process as Sally Hansen or Incoco, in that they don't dry out and feel a tiny bit rubbery. OMG also has nail foils for $4.99 a set; I haven't tried those.

You can follow OMG Nail Strips on Facebook and Instagram.

The OMG strips in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.